ALISMATACEAE
Morphological description
Rhizomatous herbs; exstipulate. Waterplants.
Leaves usually crowded, simple on long petioles, entire, usually laticiferous.
Inflorescence
Usually, umbels arranged in racemes or panicles.
Flowers
Flowers bisexual, actinomorphic, tepals 6 in two rows of 3; ovary superior; stamens many, carpels many.
Fruits
Fruit an achene, achene with a long beak (Echinodorus)
Seeds
Seeds few, usually.
Different from: Hydrocharitaceae: ovary inferior.
Distribution: The family is best represented in the northern hemisphere. In Malesia 4 genera, including Sagittaria, (mainly America, few in Old World); marshy places in lowland.
Notes: Members of the family are always found in marshy places. The corms of Sagittaria sagittifolia are edible.
Literature: C. den Hartog, Fl. Males. I, 5 (1957) 317-334.
Spot characters (Van Balgooy): Bulbils (Alisma, Caldesia), petioles enlarges/swollen at the ends (p.p., Sagittaria), scalariform tertiary venation (Limnocharis, corolla yellow (Limnocharis), fruits muricate, tuberculate or rugose (Caldesiap.p., Sagittaria).
Illustrations in Plant Portrait: Fig. 8. Sagittaria sagittifolia L. subsp. leucopetala (Miq.) Hartog (Alismataceae). Habit; enlarged fruit. Reproduced from Flora Malesiana I, 5 (1957) 333, fig. 11.
Image in PhytoImages for Alismataceae